Biographies of Women Mathematicians

Mary Ellen Rudin

December 7, 1924 - March 18, 2013

Written by Shannon Carr, Class of 2000 (Agnes Scott College)

Mary Ellen Rudin was born Mary Ellen Estill on December 7, 1924 in the small
town of Hillsboro, Texas. Mary Ellen was from a middle-class, Presbyterian background;
her father, Joe Jefferson Estill, was a civil engineer, and her mother was a high school
English teacher. She had one sibling, Joe Jefferson Estill, Jr., who was ten years her
junior.

After graduating from high school, Mary Ellen enrolled at the University of Texas, and it
was there that she developed her interest in mathematics. She flourished under the
instruction of R.L. Moore, a research mathematician and a professor at the University of
Texas. His "Moore Method" of encouraging his students to partake in original research
inspired Mary Ellen to pursue a career in mathematics. She completed her B.A. degree in
1944, and her Ph.D. followed in 1949; she obtained both degrees from the University of
Texas. After completing her Ph.D., she taught at Duke University until 1953.

The year of Mary Ellen's departure from Duke coincided with her marriage to a
fellow mathematician, Walter Rudin. Together they relocated to the University of
Rochester, where she served as a visiting assistant professor from 1953 to 1958. The
Rudins found a permanent home in Madison, Wisconsin when both Walter and Mary
Ellen accepted teaching positions at the University of Wisconsin. Mary Ellen served as a
lecturer until 1971 when she was promoted to full professor. In 1981 she became the first to hold
the Grace Chisholm Young Professorship at Wisconsin. She has also held visiting professorships
in New Zealand, Mexico, and China. Both she and
Walter are now Professor Emeritus at Wisconsin.

This successful career in mathematics was achieved in the midst of a very active
and full family life. Together, she and Walter had four children: Catherine, born in
1954; Eleanor, born in 1955; Jefferson, born in 1961; and Charles Michael, born in 1964.
Mary Ellen managed the demands of both motherhood and a career as a prominent
mathematician with an amazing amount of ease and grace. As a mother of four and a
grandmother of two, Mary Ellen never let her career detract from her devotion to her
family. She once stated that she "never minded doing mathematics lying of the sofa in
the middle of the living room with the children climbing all over [her]" (Jackson 14). By
immersing herself completely in both activities, Mary Ellen was able to dedicate herself
entirely to her two great passions: family and mathematics.

Mary Ellen Rudin's work primarily centered upon set-theoretic topology, with an
emphasis on the construction of counter examples. She produced approximately seventy
research papers on this subject. She was also an excellent teacher, and she
supervised a large number of Ph.D. students throughout her career. Mary Ellen was also
the beneficiary of three research grants. She has been involved in a large number of
mathematical associations and societies, namely the Mathematical Association of
America, the Association for Women in Mathematics, the Association for Symbolic
Logic, and the American Mathematical Society (AMS); during 1980-1981, Rudin was
Vice President of the AMS. Rudin also served on a variety of
mathematical boards such as the Committee of the National Academy of Science for Eastern
Europe, the National Committee for Mathematics of the Board of Mathematical Science
of the National Research Council, and the editorial board of Topology and Its
Applications. Mary Ellen was also the recipient of the Prize of Nieuw
Archiet voor Wiskunde (Mathematical Society of the Netherlands) in 1963.

Mary Ellen Rudin is an amazing woman. In a sense, she held two jobs; she was
both a full-time mother and prominent mathematician. She claimed that she was fueled
by a motivation that came "entirely from within" (Jackson 14), and it was this inspiration coupled
with a love of her work and family that brought her success in life.